The courts of Devon see a regular supply of robbers, burglars and thieves.

Here DevonLive brings you a list of the some of the most brazen, bungling and bizarre.

They include the post office raider who used his finger to pretend he had a gun in his pocket, the loud-mouth robber who sat on the fridge when shop staff locked the door, and the revolting burglar who urinated in a cafe's ice cream freezer.

Some of the incidents were genuinely terrifying for the victims or caused thousands of pounds of damage and the sentences handed down by the court reflect those facts.

What all the defendants have in common is that their crimes have landed them before the courts and, in most cases, behind bars.

But bungling Firman was forced to put the bottles back on the shelf after brave staff locked him inside the shop. He was arrested and when police turned up they found him sat quietly on the ice cream fridge.

His friend Ryan O’ Regan, 26, did manage to get away with 13 bottles of booze which he spent the evening drinking - claiming he and friends had quaffed the lot.

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Locked up in 2018

He claimed he was asleep at his mum's house at the time and protested his innocence, saying blood at the scene was from a previous visit to the shop when he got his hand stuck in the machine.

After the jury found him guilty he was released on bail to get his affairs in order. He promptly fled - last heard of possibly heading to Thailand - and was jailed for seven and half years in his absence.

This thief stole charity collections and staff tips to feed her drug habit.

Damaris Ellen Pettit (AKA Bryant), 38, targeted businesses throughout Devon, Falmouth and Penryn, taking cash, food and booze worth hundreds of pounds. She committed a string of thefts, including charity boxes from the same fish and chip shop on consecutive days.

She was jailed for 38 weeks.

A fish and chip shop owner and victim said: "It's poor really. Charity boxes are an easy target because you can just pick them up and leave and she took advantage of that. It's not nice and not necessary and sometimes there's not even enough money in there to buy a pasty.

Branson, 45, had a habit of being caught stealing in people's homes then making 'transparent' and ridiculous excuses to explain her unexpected presence.

The prolific burglar told a startled homeowner who found her wandering around his house in East Devon that she had lost her dog.

It happened in the midst of a four-month spree of break-ins in the Axminster area.

In one house she said she was looking for a bicycle pump to fix her flat tyre while in another she asked the owner if he needed labourers for renovation work. When she was discovered sat on a bed next to a jewellery box she tearfully explained that her husband had been cheating on her and she was on the trail of his lover while their baby cried mournfully at home.

This carjacker dragged his victim from the vehicle, put him in a headlock and ranted ‘I’ll do you with this screw’.

The victim thought he had a screwdriver but the court heard it was actually just a screw Benjamin Darbyshire had picked up from the ground.

The 30-year-old then snatched the keys of the Nissan Micra and drove from Hatherleigh to Okehampton where he was chased by police.

He didn't get very far and was stopped by a stinger and arrested. His victim said he thought he was going to die during the ordeal. Darbyshire, who had a reputation for violence, was jailed for three and a half years.